We’ve All Been There: Ready for Back-To-School

Lauren - University of Michigan

You’ve spent the last 3 nights enjoying the free booze freedom that Welcome Week allows, but as you wake up with the garbage can next to your bed – again – you realize it might be time to buckle down. Classes are looming ever closer and not only can your body not handle another 12-hour hangover, you’ve got a lot of stuff to prepare before those 18 credits take over your life.

So while your friends watch another SATC marathon/discuss what they’re going to wear to the night’s festivities, you grab your schedule and head out for something a little more….fun: school supplies shopping (!!).

Most people wouldn’t find this particular type of shopping exciting, but back-to-school shopping has been the highlight of your Augusts since you were 6 years old. The smell of fresh books, the feel of a new (medium point) pen as it runs across the pages of a fresh, crisp college-ruled notebook. The richness of a new, juicy highlighter. You can’t wait to get it all home and organized for the first day of classes.

You skip through the aisles of Office Depot (or the campus bookstore if you’re smart and you can use your campus card…that your parents pay for) picking up color-coordinated notebooks and folders. You grab a pack of highlighters then, feeling ambitious, pick up one more. You plan on doing all your reading this semester – you need to be prepared. You grab your favorite pens (uni-ball vision elite, what what), a pack of pencils, the super pack of Sharpies (Ok, so this one is for game-day shirts, but whatever), then move onto the planners.

You’re picky about your planners. There needs to be both “Month at a Glance” and “Week View.” You need to be able to see when exams are coming so you can start studying early, but also have plenty of space to write down (and cross of when you’re finished) the important daily assignments. You need to stay organized so you can kick some ass this semester. So you spend 10 minutes staring at the planner display before you pick one out (“WHA? Planners are $30!), put that one down and pick another.

Once you’ve got all your supplies, you head back home (where you find your roommates passed out on the couch with an empty pizza box on the floor) to organize. You label the notebooks and folders, fill out the information card in the front of your planner, and put all your new pens/pencils/highlighters into your bag.

On the first day of class, you are on top of everything. You arrive early, you copy all important dates from your syllabus to your planner, you organize all your papers into the correct folders and even take serious notes in class. You know what to do and when to do it and you are excited for all the learning that is to come this semester.

But then the second week rolls around and you still haven’t purchased your books let alone highlighted in them. Then you start rolling into class five minutes after it starts. And then you have some quizzes, which are a surprise to you since you have no idea where your planner went. By the time midterms arrive, you’re back into your old all-nighter habits, praying you make it out of the semester alive.